The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) budget model predicts the U.S. budget will be unsustainable within twenty-six years. In other words, it is impossible for the American economy to continue past 2037. House Budget Chairman Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said President Barack Obama’s budget strategy is to “do nothing, punt, duck, kick the can down the road” while the debt remains on track to eventually | Read More »

OK, that’s not the title of the piece. The title of the piece is “Social Security reform splits White House political, economic teams.” I’m merely providing a translation from the original Beltwayese. The problem is this: somebody told The Hill that Obama’s advisers are broken up into two groups. The first group consists of the financial people, who are patiently explaining that Social Security is | Read More »

OK, that’s not the title of the piece. The title of the piece is “Social Security reform splits White House political, economic teams.” I’m merely providing a translation from the original Beltwayese. The problem is this: somebody told The Hill that Obama’s advisers are broken up into two groups. The first group consists of the financial people, who are patiently explaining that Social Security is | Read More »

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has an interesting bit of information online this morning. In summary, it appears as though self-identified “tea party” folks are generally disinterested in making significant cuts to Entitlements. It’s disheartening. And while I could write volumes about how the “tea party” is less of a policy-based movement and more of an emotional reaction to the concept of “big government,” I’ll focus my efforts | Read More »

Who can fathom the numbers being thrown around in conjunction with the federal fiscal situation. No one. The most common attempt is to report the numbers as a percent of GDP. Who cares about relating to the GDP unless you are comparing the spending of the US to another country? By itself numbers expressed as a percent of the GDP don’t mean much. They certainly | Read More »

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss stock derivatives, the Flash Crash and the failing financial status of USA Inc. We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We | Read More »

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss stock derivatives, the Flash Crash and the failing financial status of USA Inc. We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We | Read More »

Imagine for a moment a private financial services firm caught running a ponzi scheme in which public funds were spent on lavish projects for the manager’s friends. Astoundingly, instead of incarcerating the perpetrators and returning the money to the investors, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) negotiates with the criminals. That’s right. The SEC collaborates with the criminal executives to force the public to contribute | Read More »

Imagine for a moment a private financial services firm caught running a ponzi scheme in which public funds were spent on lavish projects for the manager’s friends. Astoundingly, instead of incarcerating the perpetrators and returning the money to the investors, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) negotiates with the criminals. That’s right. The SEC collaborates with the criminal executives to force the public to contribute | Read More »

“…You gather a group of middle-aged, middle-class, middle-income voters who remember with longing an easier time…” – Andrew Shepherd from The American President. For those who may not have seen that movie, the context of that statement is that people would want to go back to the “good old’ days” when everything seemed to be better than it is now. So, the question is why? | Read More »

(Via Hot Air) A surprise everyone saw coming: The Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday that Social Security will pay out $45 billion more in benefits this year than it will collect in payroll taxes, further straining the nation’s finances. The deficits will continue until the Social Security trust funds are eventually drained, in about 2037.

This week from Rasmussen: Republicans hold a 10-point edge when it comes to voter trust on Social Security-related issues, 46% to 36%, up from a virtual tie last month. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/trust_on_issues That has to be pretty disturbing to Democratic strategists. If their Party is not even trusted to defend their most cherished and celebrated legislative achievement, what can they win on? But it also raises the | Read More »

Insurance, Bought and Paid For.. Repeat after me, insurance, bought and paid for. Mechanical efficiency allowing the “premium” to be just three cents on the dollar. http://www.archive.org/details/YourSoci1940 Notice the giant safe shortly after 5:00, and the phrase “in trust”. But the promises of Obamacare are true, right?

After billions in stimulus spending and bailing out banks and automakers, America’s public finances are in dire straits. Last year, the federal deficit reached almost $1.5 trillion while the debt has grown to $14 trillion, equaling the total annual economic output of the United States. Americans may need to brace for austerity but plans to rein in spending are few and controversial. Republicans have pledged | Read More »

http://www.mlgoodell.webs.com When my mother-in-law died last July, the funeral home informed us that they would contact the Social Security Administration, as required by law. We didn’t think anything more about it until just recently when my wife deposited a check into an account we’ve been using to cover expenses at her mother’s still-unsold house. That’s when she discovered there was about $5,000 more in the | Read More »